Costantino Vetriani
Associate
Professor
Deep-Sea microbiology,
extremophiles, molecular ecology, adaptations to extreme environments
 email:
phone: 848-932-3379
Education: Ph.D., University of Rome, Italy
Research Interests:
Research in my laboratory is focused on: i) the physiology, ecology and
evolutionary relationships of deep-sea prokaryotes, with an emphasis on
deep-sea hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, and ii) the microbial adaptations
to extreme environmental conditions. More specifically, we work on the
isolation and characterization of novel organisms from deep-sea environments,
with an emphasis on thermophilic Archaea and Bacteria, and we look at
community dynamics along chemical and physical gradients at deep-sea vents
and cold seeps. Our experimental strategies include standard approaches
in marine microbiology, such as enrichment cultures/isolations, and molecular
ecological approaches, such as PCR, library construction and screening,
sequencing, DGGE, and FISH. Furthermore, in collaboration with biochemists,
we use genetic engineering and biochemical approaches, combined with comparative
protein structure modeling, to study the evolutionary adaptive features
that allow microorganisms to thrive in the extreme environmental conditions
found in the deep-sea (e.g., extremely high temperature found at deep-sea
vents). We believe that the integration of multiple approaches is critical
to understand the ecology and evolution of deep-sea microorganisms.
Research Lab: Deep-Sea
Microbiology
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